Campaign Finance Investigation Focuses On UFT And NYSUT Donations In Buffalo

Just up in the last hour at the Buffalo News:

Erie County prosecutors are asking questions about campaign donations to a Buffalo-based State Senate race in 2014 as part of a burgeoning statewide investigation that extends to the mayor of New York City.

Acting Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Flaherty Jr. said he will not discuss details, but acknowledged his office is involved. Sources familiar with Flaherty’s effort say it revolves around the 60th District race between Republican Mark J. Grisanti and Democrat Marc C. Panepinto, which Panepinto won.

...

It is expected Bonanno’s investigation will center on whether any illegal coordination occurred between contributing committees and individual campaigns. Suggestions of such activity surfaced during the 2014 campaign, according to Erie County Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph M. Mohr.

“There were complaints that there was coordination between the teachers union and the Panepinto campaign,” Mohr said, “in the general campaign and specifically with signs.

“But there was never any formal complaint,” he added.

It is also expected that transactions The Buffalo News reported last July between the Erie County Democratic Committee and a political action committee linked to a state teachers union will be involved in the probe.

Some of the details:

The News reported that a significant donation to the Erie County Democratic Committee for Panepinto’s campaign – involving some of the same unions and consultants now under scrutiny – was never recorded. Campaign finance reports showed the United Federation of Teachers Committee on Political Education sent $100,000 on Oct. 28, 2014, to Erie County Democrats. Two months later, the local Democrats sent $50,000 to the Red Horse Strategies political consulting firm in Brooklyn, which was working for the Panepinto campaign.

Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner said at the time that the committee never received money from UFT/COPE, a teachers union political committee. In fact, he said he never reported the income and never cashed a check because he never received one.

A UFT spokesman also said at the time that the union cut a check for Erie County Democrats on Oct. 28, 2014, as part of its efforts to aid Senate Democrats, but never sent it after establishing other priorities.

Campaign finance records show the New York State United Teachers union spent more than $1 million on the 2014 race to defeat Grisanti.

Campaign finance law in New York State is opaque and complex, so your guess is as good as mine whether there's anything here for the UFT and NYSUT to be worried about.

NYSUT dropped $1 million to defeat Grisanti in 2014, which sounds like an awful lot of money, until you hear that charter school proponents spent $1.5 million+ in the recent special election to replace soon-to-be imprisoned Dean Skelos in his Long Island state Senate seat (their guy lost anyway.)

Quite frankly it bothers me a bit that de Blasio's getting a campaign finance colonoscopy for his 2014 efforts to win the state Senate for Dems when nobody blinked at Cuomo for raising $17 million from undisclosed sources for his Committee To Save New York and using $10 million of that to fund TV ads touting his agenda.

It also is bothering me that the teachers unions are getting this scrutiny for their donations but nobody's looking at the hedge fund managers and education reformers spending millions to elect their guys and push their anti-union/pro-charter school agenda.

Quite frankly, somebody ought to be looking into how StudentsFirstNY, Families for Excellent Schools and some of the other ed deform/Wall Street entities are spending their cash and the same goes for Cuomo.

Tenant Advocates Decry Cuomo's Betrayal, Threaten Him With 2018 Opponent

From the "Would've Been Nice To Understand This In 2014" file:

ALBANY - Angry tenant activists and other liberals are threatening to find a primary challenge to Gov. Cuomo in 2018 if he doesn't deliver on his promises to strengthen the expiring rent regulation law.

"We basically have had it with Andrew Cuomo, with his total phony double talking, who clearly is siding with the landlords despite his rhetoric," said longtime activist Michael McKee, treasure of Tenants PAC. "We are looking for a Democratic candidate to challenge him if he runs for a third term.

Katie Goldstein, director of Tenants & Neighbors, also spoke of a potential primary for Cuomo unless he can "strengthen the rent laws in a meaningful way."

"New York tenants are the ones who got him elected," Goldstein said, noting his strong showing in the city.

The tenant advocates are incensed at what they say is Cuomo's quick retreat from his June 6 guest column in the Daily News in which he called for a strengthening of the rent laws.

Among the changes he said he is pushing is ending vacancy decontrol, which lets apartments out of rent regulation when the rent goes over $2,500 and a tenant moves out, and scrapping the 20% rent hike landlords are allowed to make every time a tenant leaves.

Cuomo has since said he expects the current law might simply be extended and is trying to tie the issue to passage of an education investment tax credit designed to mainly benefit parochial and private schools and their donors.

Were tenant advocates and liberals unaware that Cuomo's M.O. is betrayal, that he takes a lot of money from the landlords, that he was likely to make it look like he was going to "reform" the rent regulation laws, then do as much as he could to simply leave things alone?

I dunno, I'm not that smart, but watching Cuomo the last four+ years, that's how I would've gamed this out.

And lo and behold, that's how it's playing out.

Not all that different from how he made all those promises to the Working Families Party in 2014, then ignored them (e.g., to take back the state Senate for the Dems.)

Or the way he claimed he was "friend" to Bill de Blasio, then did everything he could behind the scenes (and sometimes in front of the scenes) to screw his "friend".

This is classic Cuomo, paying lip service to progressive values while really pushing to pay back his wealthy donors.

Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office

Alan Chartock in the Daily Freeman:

Cuomo is known and respected up to now as a take-no-prisoners tough guy, but his political antennae seem corrupted. His picking on the teachers in New York state is dumber than dumb. It appears that he fell in with a crowd of rich potential funders who are always yelling about “educational reform.” Maybe he wanted their money and he became a fierce charter school advocate and then adopted positions which then threatened the hell out of the teachers who are underpaid and overworked. Their tenure is one of the few things they do have going for them, and however Cuomo meant it, the teachers saw him as looking to evaluate them with an eye toward firing them. These are usually people who want nothing to do with Albany politics, but they sure got a wakeup call. I talk to them all the time and they are angrier than I have ever seen them.

Zephyr Teachout has an excellent idea how teachers can take that anger and do something productive with it:

Liberal activist Zephyr Teachout is touring New York starting tonight in Syracuse to try to recruit teachers and women to run for public office in New York.


Teachout, the Fordham Law School professor who ran against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary last year, said the education policy battles at the state Capitol should spur teachers and parents to run for political office so their voice can be better heard.

“The focus is getting more people into the political process, and the focus here is on teachers and women,” Teachout said in an interview with Gannett’s Albany Bureau. “If there’s a central thrust, it’s educators and parents.”

Teachout, who lives in Manhattan, is partnering with the union-backed Working Families Party and the New York State United Teachers union on the effort.

She said the massive testing opt-out movement in New York in April, as well as protests to new teacher evaluations show that education advocates can play an increasingly important role in politics — on the state and local levels.

“I don’t think most people go into teaching in order to run for office, but they didn’t go into teaching to protest either,” Teachout said. “And they’ve become this incredible, powerful political force, and my hope is to engage some of those teachers who are political and hopefully get them elected and have more formal political power.”

Now electing teachers to political office isn't guaranteed to make politics more amenable to public education teachers - after all, former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (now under indictment for making illegal payments to someone he allegedly molested back in the 70's) and Independent Democratic Caucus head Jeff Klein are both former teachers and neither are what I would term "teacher- or public education-friendly" in their political views.

But in general, having teachers run for political office is a terrific idea and certainly there are many teacher leaders out there who would make excellent candidates.

The same goes for parent activists in the opt-out movement.

Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu, both professors, ran in 2014 for governor and lieutenant governor respectively and put in very respectable showings.

Had Teachout gotten the Working Families Party ballot line for the general election, she would have done some serious damage to Andrew Cuomo, taking him well under the 50% line in his race against GOP candidate Rob Astorino, but even in the Democratic primary she did serious damage, winning 23 counties to Cuomo's 29.

Cuomo's campaign was so worried that Tim Wu had momentum against Kathy Hochul that they called out Randi Weingarten and Bill de Blasio to robocall for her, turning the contest toward Hochul for good.

Nonetheless, the Teachout/Wu campaigns of 2014 served notice that many Dems were not happy with Andrew Cuomo and his policies and they can serve as models for educator and parent campaigns going forward.

Randi Weingarten Says She Regrets Campaiging for Kathy Hochul

From the "She's Full Of Crap" file comes this:

BUFFALO—American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten regrets campaigning for Governor Andrew Cuomo's running mate in last year’s elections, she told Capital during a union convention on Saturday.

Weingarten, former president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, voiced a last-minute robocall supporting current lieutenant governor Hochul last September when the former Buffalo congresswoman faced what appeared to be a serious challenge from an anti-Cuomo insurgent candidate, Tim Wu, in the Democratic primary. (Wu, a Fordham University law professor, ran with Zephyr Teachout, whose surprisingly strong challenge to Cuomo led to an unflattering result for the governor.)

...

“Look, Kathy Hochul as a congresswoman was a terrific congresswoman,” Weingarten said, after addressing more than 2,000 New York State United Teachers members who gathered in Buffalo for their annual convention. “And on balance, she would have been, and she should be, a terrific lieutenant governor. But what’s happened is that actions speak louder than words.

 “In seeing what we’ve seen, I’m really disappointed, and I regret what she’s done, and I regret actually making it clear that she was terrific beforehand,” Weingarten said, when asked directly whether she regretted doing the robocall."

Hochul was a terrific congresswoman?

What the hell is Weingarten talking about?

Hochul was a congresswoman for less than one term.

She won a special election on May 25, 2011 to fill Representative Chris Lee's seat after he resigned from Congress.

She lost her re-election bid in November 2012.

She was a congresswoman for a little over a year.

After that, she became a bank lobbyist.

Yeah, a bank lobbyist.

Weingarten is so full of crap when she says she supported Hochul because she was a terrifc congresswoman.

She supported Hochul because this was a back alley way of supporting Cuomo.

Not that Cuomo cared because, as he said right in front of Weingarten at a Forbes forum months before the election, he planned to "break" public schools as soon as he was re-elected.

He's followed through on that promise and Weingarten is complicit in his crimes against public schools and public school teachers.

We've let her have it before over this, but she kept defending the robocalls.

I guess that defense, given the virulence with which Cuomo has gone after teachers, has even started to sound hollow in her own ears.

She's trying to walk back the robocall now, but she fools few with her jive.

Weingarten supported Hochul as a way to support Cuomo.

That was true then and it's still true now, no matter how she tries to spin it.

Karen Magee And NYSUT In The Buffalo News

The Buffalo News:

Few outsiders knew anything about Karen Magee before the head of the state teachers union ousted a predecessor considered too willing to compromise and immediately escalated the public war against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state lawmakers.

Since Magee took over last April, New York State United Teachers has:

• Funneled millions of dollars into legislative campaigns across the state to influence lawmakers who would ultimately decide on teacher evaluations;

• Changed the makeup of the Board of Regents, including ousting Western New York’s longtime pro-reform representative; and

• Gone head to head with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is pushing for tougher evaluations for teachers.

NYSUT has long been influential in state politics. But Magee, who is in Buffalo this week for the union’s annual convention, has raised its public profile and the level of confrontation, blazing an assertive public awareness campaign spanning all mediums, from television ads to social media.

Before we take any victory laps, let us note that

• Magee and NYSUT may have funneled millions of dollars into legislative campaigns, but they lost all but one of them
• Magee and NYSUT may have helped change the makeup of the Board of Regents, but we still don't know if that will have much (or any) impact on policy going forward.
• Magee and NYSUT may have gone head-to-head with Cuomo on evaluations, but they lost that battle - completely and utterly.

I would add that Magee and NYSUT tried to get the heavy hearts in the Assembly to vote against Cuomo's education reforms in the budget this year but failed at that task too.

Magee and NYSUT may have raised their profiles and level of confrontation, but they haven't won any battles.

Yes, it's possible that NYSUT added some heft to the op-out movement by throwing support to the movement very late in the game, but the truth is, there were going to be a couple of hundred thousand opt-outs this year whether NYSUT supported the movement or not.

So call me cynical, but I'm not ready to run a victory lap with Magee and NYSUT yet.

I'd like to see them actually, you know, win something first.

What Will Cuomo Try To Pull In His Second Term?

Governor Cuomo remains in hiding post-Election Day:

Governor Andrew Cuomo is in the New York City area with no public schedule.

It's been that way since the election.

He is said to be making plans for his second term.

I posted last week that he is sitting in his darkened room preparing to settle all Family business and dispatch his enemies and anybody else who humiliated him during the election cycle.

We know he's going to go after teachers and schools - he already told us he plans to "break" us.

I expect that he will try and revise APPR (which he has promised to do in order to add "real sanctions"), that he will try and further weaken tenure and go after seniority rights for layoffs.

And of course the charter cap will be either lifted or eliminated - that goes without saying.

Also mayoral control in NYC will be revised to humiliate de Blasio and further empower the charter school entrepreneurs.

I have heard rumors of even darker things to come, with Cuomo planning a full-out assault on unions in the state, a la Scott Walker.

There are rumors that he plans to go after the Triborough Agreement and pensions of current (and perhaps even retired) state workers, a la Chris Christie.

I have a difficult time seeing him getting the political juice to mount a major assault against the Triborough agreement or pensions, given that he won re-election by just 13%, many of the people who voted for him weren't particularly enamored with him to begin with and he's got lots of enemies in Albany who would love to stick a shiv in him.

But you never know - Cuomo's a vindictive SOB and he hasn't hidden away for the last few weeks in a darkened room with Joe Percoco and his other henchmen to throw us all a party in January.

So, whatever's coming is going to be pretty bad.

What do you expect him to try and do and what do you think he'll actually be able to do?

That second part of the question is important - Cuomo's got all kinds of evil in his heart he wants to unleash on people, but we need to remember, after spending 9 to 1 over his GOP opponent, he won the election by just 13 percentage points.

And he has a U.S. attorney looking into him.

And he has a lot of enemies in Albany and around the state looking to pay him back for his previous crimes against them.

This is not 2010 and Governor Cuomo is not some juggernaut.

He CAN be beaten in whatever fight he brings to us.

Charter School Supporters Want Payback From Cuomo, Legislature

Not a surprise:

Charter school advocates are pushing for a bigger slice of the education pie after Republicans took a larger share of lawmaking power in Albany after last week’s election.

Pro-charter groups who spent millions on advertising, lobbying and campaigns in the fall want favorable treatment from the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo.

They seek to limit Mayor de Blasio’s control of charter schools, expand funding and lift the cap on charter schools in New York, allowing for the creation of more charter schools in the city and across the state.

...

There are currently 28 slots left for charter schools in New York City and an additional 133 upstate. Charter boosters seek to raise or eliminate those caps.

Charter advocates also want more money for charter schools set aside in the state budget. The state’s current budget leaves out facilities funding for many charter schools.

Pro-charter school groups pumped more than $4 million into a super PAC called New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany that helped the Republicans win the state Senate. Charter advocates also spent millions on lobbying.

Governor Cuomo has already told us he plans to "break" the public school system this term and dramatically expand charters acorss the state.

GOP leader Skelos has promised charters are going to get a major emphasis from his caucus this legislative session.

And IDC head Jeff Klein and his IDC betrayers - pro-charter, anti-public school pols all - have indicated they will try and share power with the GOP to push through the Republican agenda.

That means no matter what Assembly Leader Shelly Silver does, this is going through.

Barring something unforeseen, like a major scandal involving a major charter player like Eva Moskowitz or Cuomo getting hauled out in handcuffs by the US attorney investigating him over the Moreland mess, the charter people are going to get what they paid for this legislative session.

Bloomberg's Latest Threat

The Little Oligarch just won't go away:

“Michael Bloomberg’s $40 million spending splurge on politics for this year’s election taught him a lesson for 2016: You get a much better bang for your buck by trying to tip state and local elections than high-profile federal ones,” Politico reports.

“So as the former New York mayor turned activist for gun control, healthier food choices, education reform, and other issues makes his spending plans for the next two years, he plans to weight his contributions more toward ballot measures, governor and school-board candidates, and away from House and Senate races, which have become glutted with outside money.”

Charter school backers are already throwing a lot of money into local races to sway them their way.

 

If Bloomberg takes the money he threw into the national races and adds that to the cash he's already been throwing into local races, he quite literally can buy democracy at the municipal or state levels.

 

An analysis of the 2014 election shows that the candidates who spent the most money almost always won:

Morning Line: “We already know that the $4 billion spent on this midterm election was more than any other midterm in history. It was the most on congressional elections ever, including during a presidential year. What do the numbers really tell us? These two stats jumped out at us from a post-analysis done by the Center for Responsive Politics:

• 94 percent of biggest spenders in House races won, up slightly from 2012
• 82 percent of biggest spenders in Senate races won, up from 76 percent in 2012

What that means is, as one of us noted on NewsHour Monday night money, more specifically who spends the most, is about as good a predictor that there is of who will win a race. Those numbers, by the way, are pretty close to the incumbent reelection rates.”

 

American Democracy in the 21st Century - owned by the oligarchs and the political whores they purchase with their money.

Fred Dicker: Andrew Cuomo Had "Secret Re-Election Pact" With GOP Leader Dean Skelos

If you were watching Andrew Cuomo closely during the 2014 election season, this Fred Dicker column in the NY Post is no surprise to you:

The state’s most powerful Republican secretly worked for months to help Democratic Gov. Cuomo win re-election — in exchange for Cuomo’s promise not to aid Senate Democrats in their Long Island races, a top New York GOP leader has charged.

Former state Republican Party Executive Director Michael Lawler — who managed Rob Astorino’s ill-fated gubernatorial run against Cuomo — told The Post that he learned of the alleged bombshell deal between Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos and Cuomo just days ago, after suspecting for months that it existed.

“Dean Skelos clearly was working against Rob’s campaign — he and the governor cut a deal,’’ seethed Lawler, a protégé of GOP Chairman Ed Cox.

The Nassau County-based Skelos and his aides “fight for nothing, stand for nothing except staying in power,’’ Lawler charged.

Lawler said he found out about the alleged Skelos-Cuomo arrangement from a top political aide to Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican and Skelos ally who, in a serious setback to Astorino, endorsed Cuomo last month. “We heard rumblings that Mangano was going to [endorse Cuomo], and I reached out to his folks and was told ‘absolutely not,’ that Mangano would endorse Astorino, although he would then let Cuomo use a video of him praising the governor,’’ Lawler said.

“But after Mangano actually endorsed Cuomo in a video on TV, I called Mangano’s guy and said, ‘What the f–k?’ He said, ‘When this is over, give me a call.’

“So I called him a few days ago, and he said, ‘A deal was cut for Mangano to endorse Cuomo in exchange for Cuomo staying out of the Senate races on Long Island,’ ’’ Lawler continued. “I asked him, ‘Who cut the deal?’ And he said, ‘People higher than me.’

“I said, ‘Dean?’ And he responded, ‘That would be a pretty good guess.’ ”

Cuomo never wanted a Democratic-controlled State Senate anymore than he wanted a third party challenge to him on the Working Families Party line in the general election.

The fix was in with the state GOP to starve GOP candidate Astorino of money and aid, helping Cuomo in the process, and keeping the status quo going in Albany - a State Senate controlled in part (or in full) by the Republicans.

Cuomo got help from Republican Governors Association head Chris Christie as well - Christie did not lift a finger to help Astorino, calling the race unwinnable.

There is a theory that Cuomo, who was on the other end of the BridgeGate mess that has caused Christie so much trouble, had a quid pro quo with the NJ governor to keep quiet about BridgeGate in return for Christie's aid in the general election.

In the Dicker story, Lawler says these politicians stand for nothing, fight for nothing, except their own power.

When you watch what these guys do, you can see how true that is.

I would add the members of the Independent Democratic Conference into that calculation - they promised to rejoin the mainstream Dems this session but are making noises like they will continue to caucus with the GOP.

It's all about power - blind f---ing ambition" as somebody put it yesterday when talking about the sell-outs these politicians engage in.

Independent Democratic Conference Screws Democrats: Part II

According to Capital NY's Jimmy Vielkind, mobbed up Bronx politician Jeff Klein, a full-fledged member of the Independent Democratic Conference and an associate member of organized crime, was looking to complete his betrayal of his Democratic colleagues last night:

SAN JUAN, P.R.—Smiling widely and flanked by three of his colleagues in the Independent Democratic Conference, Bronx Senator Jeff Klein offered few clues about how the leadership structure of the State Senate will appear next year.

“The only thing I'm going to say right now is, I want to make sure the Independent Democratic Conference remains a separate conference. I think we proved to be a very effective force in governing—in a coalition government, when there wasn't a coalition government—and, you know, when we move forward I hope that's going to be what happens. If it's with the Democrats, if it's with the Republicans, I think the most important thing is that we have the I.D.C. as a separate conference,” he said Friday night. “I was very proud of the accomplishments that the I.D.C. and the Republicans in our coalition were able to accomplish. I never backed away from that, even in a Democratic primary or a general election, and I hope my Republican colleagues feel the same.”

Klein spoke to reporters at a “real, authentic event” that the I.D.C. sponsored overlooking the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel, the traditional site of the Somos El Futuro conference. About 100 people sipped Barrilito Rum and enjoyed hand-rolled cigars while paying respects to Klein, whose leathery face contrasted with a baby-blue blazer and open-collared checked shirt.

He qualified an initial statement that he was basically committed to conferencing with Republicans, but then threw shade on his fellow Democrats (“I think we have to take a step back, also, and maybe redefine what it means to be a Democrat”) and spoke happily of his time with the G.O.P. (“Elections mean something. We were validated: I won overwhelmingly in my primary.”)

Wow, so much here.

First, check out the photos below and tell me which one is from Godfather II and which one from Independent Democratic Conference Screws Democrats: Part II

Yeah, I know - you're picking the second photo, but that's only because you recognized Al Pacino.

In any case, the same betrayal that occurred down in Cuba in Godfather II is occurring in Puerto Rico this weekend at Independent Democratic Conference Screws Democrats II, with Klein all set to take his IDC traitors (numbering 5 or 6, depending upon if one newly elected member of the State Senate joins the caucus), join with Republicans to again share power in the Senate and help Governor Cuomo ram through as many corporate-friendly policies as possible before 2016 (when Hillary may top the Dem ticket and bring about a Democratic-controlled State Senate.)

GOP leader Dean Skelos has said he is open to talking to Klein about again sharing power in the Senate, even though this time around Republicans hold a slim majority and don't actually need the IDC members to push through legislation.

Still, adding an extra 5 or 6 IDC traitors to the GOP ranks will give Skelos wiggle room that he doesn't have without them, so I suspect we'll again end up with the GOP/IDC power share pushing through Cuomo's corporate-friendly agenda, altough it seems Klein will not wield the same amount of power this time around - there is unlikely to be a "co-presidency" of the Senate between Skelos and Klein.

Vielkinn reports that no matter what Klein and his fellow IDC rats do, some real bona fide Democrats don't sound all that eager to have them around - not after the last IDC betrayal and Klein making noise about the next one:

Despite Klein's declarations that he is open to a re-alliance, Senate Democrats seem uneager about him, whatever he ends up doing and whatever the details are.

“They betrayed us and got us in the back of the bus. We're still in the back of the bus. So this is the second session in which that betrayal is resonating,” said Senator Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat. “Whatever they started continues, and ironically, they're getting a taste of it.”

I noted above that Klein is mobbed up.  You may think I am indulging in hyperbole there, but actually I'm not.

The New York Observer reported the following back in the summer:

State Senator Jeff Klein took a $10,000 campaign donation from a mafia-linked realty company–the same firm he rents his district office space from.

The Bronx pol’s July filing shows that the Hutchinson Metro Center, an affiliate of Simone Development–formerly known as Hutch Realty Partners–kicked in the five figures in June. The donation brings the real estate group’s total contribution to Mr. Klein’s operation to a whopping $93,850 since 2006.

One of the Hutchinson Metro Center’s principals, Waters Development, is co-owned by Michael Contillo and Joseph Deglomini. Mr. Contillo and Mr. Deglomini were indicted in the 1990s of tax evasion, racketeering, and conspiring to raid the pension funds of building trade unions with the help of organized crime.

Mr. Klein relocated his official district office to the Hutchinson Center in 2011. A spokeswoman for the senator said that the move was based on the site’s central location in the Bronx- and Westchester-spanning district.

“Senator’s Klein’s district office is located in the expansive Hutchinson Metro Center complex, as are a number of city agencies including the New York City Housing Authority the City’s 911 call center, federal agencies and prominent New York institutions,” said spokeswoman Candice Giove. “Senator Klein’s district office lease, like all of Senate leases and lease renewals, was subject to procurement and vendor review by the State Senate and was reviewed and signed off on by both the Attorney General and New York State Comptroller.”

The New York Post has previously noted Mr. Klein had rented space and received donations from the mob-tied firm.

Ms. Giove did not immediately respond to requests for comment specifically about Mr. Klein’s acceptance of campaign funds from a mafia-affiliated organization.

According to the Daily News, Hutch Realty Partners purchased 10 acres of land–immediately adjacent to their center where Mr. Klein’s district office is located–from the state for a total of $5.5 million between 2001 and 2005, when the New York Police Department was interested in constructing a call center on the plot. After an extended fight, the city agreed to buy the land from the company for $46 million.

The senator’s camp said he had no input with the state, the city, or Hutch Realty Partners at any time during the land dealings.

“Senator Klein has absolutely no knowledge of the business matters of the Hutchinson Metro Center. He has never intervened in the Hutchinson Metro Center’s dealings with government, and any assertions to the contrary are wrong and unfair,” said Ms. Giove.

Hutch Realty Partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has donated to other politicians and political causes, including $9,600 to the Bronx Democratic Party and $5,000 to Democratic Senate Minority Leader–and aspiring majority leader–Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Mr. Klein leads the Independent Democratic Conference, which formed a power-sharing arrangement with the Senate Republicans in 2012, but agreed to caucus again with the larger Democratic delegation last month.

If Klein ever betrayed his mobster associates the way he has betrayed his fellow Democrats, he'd end up missing until the police found him in the trunk of a burnt car somewhere in the Bronx with six bullet holes in him.

But Jeff Klein knows who he can betray and who he can't - he knows his fellow Dems will probably turn back to him when they need him even though he has already betrayed them once and is looking to do so again.

I certainly don't think Dems ought to treat his betrayal the way the mob would - that would be insane, immoral and criminal.

But I do think there ought to be some political consequences for Klein's sell-out - and the same goes for the rest of the members of the IDC (Avella, Savino, et al.)

Alas, it seems these traitors live on to repeat their betrayals over and over with impunity.

Nice work if you can get it, I guess - if you're a sociopath like Jeff Klein and his fellow IDCer's.

They're down in Puerto Rico cutting up the cake shaped like New York State right now.

Cuomo's Vote Percentage 52.6% On NY State Board of Elections Website

The NY Times election map still has Cuomo with 54% of the vote from yesterday's election.

But the unofficial results at the NY State Board of Elections site has been updating throughout the day and there's a different tabulation there.

As of 9:25 PM tonight, Cuomo has the following:

DEM - 46.04%
WOR - 3.25%
IND - 1.97%
WEP - 1.38%

The total?

52.64% for Cuomo on all four ballot lines.

The NY State Board of Election is notoriously slow and occasionally error-prone, so maybe their unofficial totals are not the most accurate totals at this point.

But if they are, then Cuomo won re-election with just 52.64% of the vote after having $45 million to spend on his election compared to his opponent, Rob Astorino, who had just $5 million and got no help from the State Republican Party or the Republican Governors Association.

Just imagine if Astorino had gotten backing from the GOP elites.

He might have actually made the election a lot closer than it was.

Then imagine if the union leaders hadn't threatened Working Families Party and WFP had given Teachout their ballot line.

Would have been an interesting election, eh?

But elections are often won or lost well before Election Day and this one was lost when the GOP stalwarts decided they would not back their own party's candidate over Cuomo and when the unions decided to force WFP to give Cuomo their ballot line.

Cuomo Wins, But...

Exit polls have him at 57%.

He won 63% in 2010.

His dad won 65% his first re-election campaign.

Schumer and Gillibrand have won elections with over 70% of the vote.

If Cuomo wins near where the exit polls have him, it's a solid win, but it's nothing to write home about.

He outspent his GOP opponent, Rob Astorino, by tens of millions of dollars.

Astorino got no help from the Republican establishment in the state and the head of the Republican Governors Association, Chris Christie, went out of his way to call Astorino a loser and help Cuomo out instead.

The unions made sure Cuomo wouldn't have a third party candidate from the left on the Working Families Party ballot line today, and while Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins was polling near double digits in some of the public polls, the exit polls have him closer to 5%.

That means Cuomo had himself a two man race, a helluva lot more money than his GOP opponent, and a Republican Party establishment that was either helping Cuomo or sitting out the race.

Of course Cuomo won tonight.

But given all the advantages he had in this campaign, he ought to have run away with the night, beaten his 2010 totals, and set himself up for a decent White House run in the future.

If the exit polls are right (and they just might be - the last public poll, Marist, had him at 56% a few days ago), he hasn't done that.

According to the exit polls, his vote totals among all demographics except white women are lower this year than they were four years ago- with white women his totals are the same as they were four years ago.

In short, Cuomo won the election tonight, but it's not exactly a ringing endorsement for another four years.

Cuomo Raked In $1 Million From Real Estate Magnate

Via State of Politics comes this doozy of an item:

Billionaire real estate magnate Leonard Litwin has outspent all political donors.

The president and chief executive officer of Long Island-based Glenwood Management donated $1 million to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign. Litwin also donated almost a combined $500,000 to the state Democratic Party and Kathy Hochul’s campaign for lieutenant governor, according to data from the New York Public Interest Research Group cited by Crain’s.

The 100-year-old investor was also the biggest donor to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s re-election campaigns. The magnate donated $240,000 to Schneiderman and $130,000 to DiNapoli, 50 percent and 30 percent more than the next largest donor, the news outlet reported.

 Litwin is also a big donor to Jobs for New York, the Political Action Committee backed by the Real Estate Board of New York. [Crain's] – Claire Moses

Those of you wondering what Cuomo will do when the rent laws come up for renewal in NYC need only look at how much cash he and his fellow Democrats have taken from the real estate interests to get an inkling of where he'll go with his policy.

What Cuomo Needs Today To Really "Win" This Election

Blake Zeff at Capital NY:

Though Cuomo is almost certain to win, the outcome of this struggle on the left isn’t just academic, and it affects him, too.

For one thing, it will have an impact on Cuomo’s share of the vote, which, despite his protestations that he just wants to win, will determine whether the juggernaut image he's shaped remains intact. And the governor well knows that in elections, there are wins and then there are wins.

While he’s cleaning Astorino’s clock, polls also show his share of the vote often sitting under 60 percent.

Here’s what that looks like when you put it into recent historical context for a Democrat in New York State. The governor’s father Mario Cuomo received 64.6 percent of the vote in his first reelection campaign. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand showed the potential for a statewide Democrat to dominate in recent (presidential) years, with the former nabbing 71.2 percent of the vote in his first re-election, and the latter getting 72.2.

Chris Christie got 60.3 percent last year in a neighboring blue state as a Republican, and Cuomo himself got 62.6 percent his first time around in 2010.

He’ll want to outperform those numbers. And for that matter he’ll want to outperform his fellow statewide Democratic candidates, Eric Schneiderman and Tom DiNapoli. That will depend in part on whether disaffected liberals vote for him—or vote at all.

If Cuomo gets 56% of the vote, as the last Marist poll showed he might, that's a clear win and he'll claim it's a mandate and look to push through his odious policies claiming the people of this state voted for them.

But taking 56% of the vote is also a sign of weakness, given that his dad received 65% of the vote the first time he ran for re-election and Schumer and Gillibrand received 71% and 72% in their first re-election bids respectively.

Hell, even Christie got 60% in a blue state.

If Cuomo can't break 60% today, let alone break his 63% mark from four years ago, it demonstrates just how weak he is politically these days, with many on the left despising him and the right despising him too.

Cuomo will put a smiley face on his win tonight, no matter the totals, and claim mandate.

But if he comes in with totals close to what he's been polling at, it's a show of weakness for Cuomo, not a show of strength.

Jeff Klein Suggests He Might Govern With Republicans Again

Here's a betrayal you could see coming from miles away:

Bronx Sen. Jeff Klein, the leader of a breakaway faction of Democrats, edged away from an agreement made with the mainline conference of Democrats earlier this year, saying in an interview on Monday that “a lot has changed.”

In an interview on The Capitol Pressroom, Klein insisted he remained committed to electing more Democrats to the state Senate.

But at the same time, Klein acknowledged that it’s likely no one will be sure who has a clear majority in the chamber after Election Day, signaling that his conference will once again be in a position to play kingmaker.

“I think you have a lot of competitive races, I’ll be very surprised if we know tomorrow evening if there will be more Democrats than Republicans in the state Senate,” Klein said.

In a foreshadowing of what is to come this month – and potentially for the end of the year – Klein would not rule out working with Senate Republicans in some capacity next year.

“I’m a Democrat, I want to elect Democrats, but when the dust settles it’s incumbent on us to work together,” Klein said, adding: “I think it’s premature to say what anyone is going to do until the dust settles.” 

In a clear overture to Cuomo, Klein criticized those on “the extreme left” who have been critical of the governor, saying such statements hurt the Democratic ticket.

Democrats taking back the State Senate would not have guaranteed a more pro-public education or teacher-friendly body.

But you can be sure if Klein is co-running the State Senate along with GOP leader Dean Skelos, it will remain an Eva Moskowitz-friendly body that will give Cuomo whatever he wants on the charter cap, a revision to APPR to make it more punitive and his desire to "break" the public school "monopoly" this next term.

We'll see if Klein decides to go all the way with the betrayal - 2016 is expected to be a better year for Dems, with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket, expanding the turnout for Dems.

So Klein has to maneuver carefully here.

He can end up holding power for two years before Dems retake the Senate and exact revenge on him.

But I'm not surprised he's already walking back from his promise to caucus with Dems.

Klein's a slippery fellow, that's for sure - as are many of his fellow members of the IDC.

Election Eve Predictions

It looks like a Republican rout all over with the GOP adding to its majority in the Congress, winning between 5 and 8 seats in the Senate (though some of those may come after runoffs), and a NY State Senate that remains in the hands of Republicans and Independent Democrats.

Governor Cuomo looks like he is going to win re-election by a healthy margin though he should fall well below the 63% he won in 2010.

Your predictions?

State Senate turn over to the Dems or stay with the GOP/IDC?

Does Howie Hawkins top the 60,000 votes he won in 2010?

Does the Working Families Party win 50,000 votes and get to keep its ballot line for the next four years?

How big are Cuomo's victory margins and, as a corollary to that last question, when does he start dismantling the public schools system?

Does Andrew Cuomo Really Think He Can Win A White House Bid As A Democrat?

It's pretty clear New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is preparing for a presidential run in the future.

Over the past few months, Cuomo has tried to raise his national profile, going on TV programs he once eschewed in order to sell his book (a book that has actually sold little, but that's another story), making high profile overseas trips to Israel and Aghanistan to tout his experience keeping New York safe from terrorism and joining fellow metro area governor Chris Christie in going his own way on the Ebola crisis response.

While Cuomo will not run in 2016 if fellow New Yorker Hillary Clinton runs, he certainly is positioning himself to run in two years if she doesn't run or in 2020 if she runs and loses to a Republican.

Cuomo has tacked to the right most of political career but even more so lately, hammering teachers and public schools in the weeks before the election, mocking the liberal base of his party in his recently released memoir (and elsewhere) and doing pretty much everything he can to keep the State Senate in Republican hands (despite promises to Working Families Party to the contrary in return for their ballot nod.)

This looks like a general election strategy, not a strategy for a Democrat who needs to get through Democratic primaries in a potential White House run, so what Cuomo is doing here is anybody's guess.

This weekend, in another sign he couldn't win a Democratic presidential primary, Moveon.org hammered him in an email blast.

In the past, Markos at the Daily Kos has hammered him too.

This election cycle, Cuomo has infuriated liberals in his party even more than usual, taking special care to tweak them even more right before the election.

I dunno, maybe he thinks he can run a general election strategy in a Democratic primary and eke out a win.

Maybe he's delusional and he thinks he's not doing permanent damage to his relationship with the liberal base of the Democratic Party (after all, he did repair his image after nearly destroying it in 2002 with the Carl McCall debacle.)

More likely, though, he simply despises liberals and the base of his party and can't help himself when he slams liberals, shoves through right-wing policies and governs like a fiscal conservative.

In any case, he has no chance to ever be president, no matter how many trips he makes abroad or how many appearances on FOX Business with Maria Bartiromo he makes - not if he runs as a Democrat at any rate.

The base of his party despises him and that scorn becomes more and more clear by the day.

He'll win re-election tomorrow and he may even post decent numbers doing it.

But the anger he's engendering with his antics will come back to haunt him in the end.

Cuomo Deliberately Widens Rift With Liberal Base In Waning Days Of The Campaign

Since your reading this blog, I know you already know how Andrew Cuomo took deliberate and conscious aim at teachers and public schools in the last week and let us all know he's coming for us in the next term.

Ken Lovett in the Daily News reports that's not the only rift Cuomo has consciously widened with the liberal base as the campaign winds down:

Cuomo in the past two weeks:

— Created a furor among educators by referring to the education system as “one of the last remaining public monopolies.”

— Pressed New Yorkers to vote for him on the Women’s Equality Party ballot line he created — leading many progressives to believe it’s an attempt to kill or weaken the Working Families Party, which party publicly embarrassed him in May before he ended up getting the party’s endorsement after Mayor de Blasio helped broker a deal.

— Did virtually no campaigning for state Senate Democrats who are trying to take control of the chamber. Cuomo had promised to make it a priority.

Working Families Party co-Chairwoman Karen Scharff called the governor's actions “kind of puzzling.”

“Who does that before Election Day?” she asked. “I don’t quite get the goal. The public overwhelmingly supports our public schools, so it’s hard to understand why the governor would attack public education right before the election.”

What's Cuomo's goal?

Perhaps this:

"You would think that this is the time (Cuomo) should be bringing everybody back home," said one Democratic operative. "But this is the reason there is no enthusiasm at the top of the ticket and that can impact the down-ballot races."

Cuomo definitely wants a State Senate run the same way as it currently is - by an amalgam of Republicans and Independent Democrats who govern rightward - so that could be one of the reasons  he's taking on the base here.

Or it's possible that he just can't help himself.

In his memoir, he took on the left as well.

He seems to genuinely despise the base of his own party.

Not that teachers and public schools are "left" in any way for most people.

But for a politician who calls the public schools a "monopoly" that he plans to "break", I guess they just might be.

In any case, you should vote your conscience tomorrow and support candidates you can legitimately support and vote against the ones you can't.

I am supporting Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones for governor and lieutenant governor.

Cowardly Cuomo Refuses To Own Up To Working Families Party Slam

Typical from Governor Narcissist - say something scummy, then make believe he didn't say it:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today denied identifying the labor-backed Working Families Party as a “fringe” party, despite radio remarks yesterday that seemed to mock and belittle the left-leaning group.

On a Friday interview on the Brian Lehrer Show, Mr. Cuomo seemed to allude to the WFP–with which he has long had a fractious relationship, and which reluctantly endorsed him twice for governor–as a “fringe” party, while pushing the Women’s Equality Party, which he created this year. The WEP purports to promote the anti-discrimination, pro-choice Women’s Equality Agenda, but many critics view it as an effort to lure progressives away from the WFP and deny it the 50,000 votes it needs to keep its ballot line.

“The Women’s Equality Party, the Women’s Equality Agenda, is something that is very important to me. I think it can be a national precedent. And it empowers women in a way that’s never been done. It’s almost amazing when you think about it. We’ve formed every kind of fringe party for every kind of reason. We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People,” Mr. Cuomo said yesterday.

But following a rally in the Bronx today with 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council–all components of the WFP’s union-community group alliance –“I don’t think I called them a ‘fringe party,'” Mr. Cuomo said, then clarifying his remarks when the Observer quoted his words from yesterday to him. “I think that I said there are a number of parties, you can vote for me on the Democratic Party, you can vote for me on the Independence Party, you can vote for me on the Working Families Party, you can vote for me on the Women’s Equality Party.”

Clearly he was tweaking WFP yesterday with the "We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People” comment on Lehrer's show.

Too bad he didn't have the guts to admit it in front of working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him.

Too bad the working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him don't realize what an arrogant, anti-union prick he is.

Cuomo Out To Destroy Working Families Party, Keep Senate In Hands Of GOP/IDC

Jon Campbell in Democrat & Chronicle:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign is boosting its efforts to snag votes on the Women's Equality Party ballot line, airing a new television advertisement in hopes of getting permanent ballot status for the next four years.

The 30-second ad will begin airing Friday through Tuesday, Election Day. It was released the same day Cuomo sent an email to supporters, asking for their vote on the line.

If Cuomo gets 50,000 votes on the WEP line, it will be on New York ballots for the next four years.

...

Cuomo launched the party effort in July, not long after he received the Working Families Party endorsement in late May as part of a last-minute deal in which he backed a variety of liberal-leaning causes.

His push for boosting the Women's Equality Party could have a detrimental impact on the Working Families Party, which currently occupies Row D on New York ballots. Should the Women's Equality Party gain more votes than the Working Families Party, it would push the latter further down the ballot.

Cuomo created the WEP for two reasons:

First, Cuomo polls badly with male voters these days but remains popular with women - pushing the WEP line has seemed to solidify his support among women voters even more

Second, it was payback for the humiliation of having to grovel for the WFP ballot line in May. 

It's not an accident that Cuomo created the WEP not long after the WFP fiasco. 

WFP leaders thought they were getting promises out of Cuomo to push for a Democratic State Senate in return for the WFP endorsement.

Instead what they got was an empty promise from Cuomo to push for Democratic control of the State Senate and a rival third party that now threatens to keep WFP from getting the 50,000 votes it needs to maintain its ballot line.

On Wednesday November 5th, it is very likely that the State Senate will remain in the control of the GOP/IDC and the WFP will no longer have its ballot line.

Quite a coup from Governor Cuomo there, sticking it to the Working Families Party.

Yeah, he had to make the hostage video to get the WFP nod, but in payback, he seeks to ensure the party loses its ballot line and ceases to matter.

Given the sell-out that occurred at the WFP convention in May, maybe that's the best thing that can happen here.

The lesson would be, don't sell your soul to a candidate who doesn't share your values, support what you support or care about you in the least.